Translated material
The Central Election Commission wants to block popular bloggers for “extremism”
The Central Election Commission adopted a draft resolution on the rules of election campaigning for “three thousand” bloggers, which provides for pre-trial blocking of pages.
On July 8, 2015, the Central Election Commission of Russia adopted a draft resolution regulating the rules of election campaigning for owners of popular websites and blogs subject to the “ law on bloggers .”
In addition to standard responsibilities for the media (to disseminate only objective and reliable information, to comply with the deadlines of the campaign period, not to publish data on voting results before the end of election day), the draft resolution contains a requirement for election commissions to “immediately” contact the prosecutor’s office if signs of extremism are detected among such bloggers to lock the page. “ Such sites are subject to blocking precisely at the request of the Prosecutor General or his deputy, and therefore we recommend that election commissions contact the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation ,” said CEC member Maya Grishina.
Pre-trial blocking of sites on which calls for extremist actions, mass riots and uncoordinated public events are found is currently regulated by the “ Lugovoi Law ”. The application of this law has already led to many unlawful, from our point of view, blockings. The scale of application is largely limited by the fact that all this work is entrusted only to the apparatus of the Prosecutor General's Office. Now, if all local election commissions help her by actually sending requests for blocking, the number of unfounded blockings, especially during the election campaign, may increase significantly.
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